Getting into the swing of things.....or trying to

I'm trying to settle into this Porteño lifestyle. Since it's been my second week here I decided I should walk you through my daily schedule. I am currently taking 20 hours of intensive Spanish lessons at VOS in Recoletta as well as putting in 4-5 hours a day of work in marketing at the school. My whole day is pretty much spent at VOS from 9am until 6 or 7pm when I get off work, unless I stay later at school for the activity of the day. As I have told you Porteños don't sleep. They eat dinner after 10pm and maybe hit the hay around 2 or 3am, daily! I've been trying to get up at 7:30am to do yoga but, some mornings I just need that extra 45 minutes of sleep. 
Currently at work I have been doing different marketing research projects. My first project was to research the other Spanish language schools and compare the top 10 schools to VOS based on advertising, website, courses offered, prices, and an onsite visit. This was a fun project. They told me that they wanted to compare VOS to other schools and it was up to me to determine what levels we needed to compare ourselves on, plus I also got to get out and explore the city a bit and play "espía" or spy by searching out and asking about the other school's programs in person. My second project was to help research the U.S. universities who are here to learn about the Spanish language schools and possibly partner with them to offer study abroad opportunities and university credit. I also had to put together a plan on how to market VOS to these schools based on demographics and program strength. I have finished the first phase of this project and am starting to work on how to pitch the school.
As for Spanish lessons, well, they are going. I can hold a pretty choppy conversation with a Spanish speaker. I'm having a hard time thinking in Spanish and trying to come up with the words I need to use. My reading is going well and I think I am listening well but, that depends on if the person talks slowly and I understand the vocabulary. I have decided that I need to learn vocabulary on my own, so I have decided to start a project and keep you updated on my learning and try to teach you at the same time. I am going to try to learn the vocab for different subjects one week at a time and update you with a blog about that subject weekly. So this coming week I am going to try to learn vocabulary associated with food; the names of food items, how to prepare the food, and items in the kitchen. I decided to start with food since I am tired of knowing the easy ingredients in food and not knowing the rest and then being surprised when I see what I ordered and it's not what I thought it was. Like last week I ordered a Tortilla de verduras, which is eggs and vegetables in a quiche type style or omelet style in some places, however; I got a plate full of overcooked spinach with a few eggs and some cheese. I think I ate all the free bread instead, at least I'm not allergic to bread anymore, or I might starve here. Another disastrous order was Ensalada con manzanas, apios y nuezs which is salad with apples, celery and walnuts and all I got was the apples, celery and walnuts, no lettuce! Guess I should have looked for the word "lechuga" to be included in that, again I ate a lot of bread because as tasty as the "salad" was it wasn't very filling and the vinegar for dressing was interesting. For my food lover friends I till try to remember to take some photos of my interesting food.
If you are wondering about the photo it's of my Spanish class, we learned the verb form for instructions and Vane, mi profesora, had us convert the recipe using the command form for chocotorta vosbuenosaires blog and then follow them. Basically its dulce de leche (caramel) and chocolate crackers, it was errr, too sweet for me, I don't think I'm a huge fan of the ducle de leche, but it was fun to make and pass out to the other students.

I can say that it's been a busy week with school and work but, I did find sometime to enjoy the nightlife. I attended a movie in Spanish on Monday at Vos, a comedy 'Esperando la Carozza' youtube, Tuesday I went to a jazz bar with Gussie, a girl from my program, it was very 'tranquilo', then Wednesday I DANCED! Well only a little bit, but we had free tango lessons at my school and it was so much fun, tango is something I definitely need to learn before I leave since BA is the world capitol for tango. Thursday was spent with crazy Celine and her boyfriend, she is Argentine but went to a bilingual school, which made for a great evening since we spoke a lot of Spanish but when I didn't understand she could clarify and correct in English, now if the music wasn't so loud and if the beer had stopped flowing I might have learned more. jajaja (hahaha, the h is pronounced like a j in Spanish). I am proud of myself for getting up early twice this week to do yoga in my room, and I went for a run this afternoon, although, I think it might have been counterproductive because Buenos Aires has some of the worst air quality in the world and running during rush hour might have given me lung cancer.....more on that in another blog...chau for tongiht!